So Long, Pierrot
by feralhand
Summary: Fifteen years, seven goodbyes. They say you can never go home again. Wammy's.
1. October 31, 1994

**So Long, Pierrot**

Fifteen years, seven goodbyes. They say you can never go home again. Wammy's.

* * *

Winchester wore autumn in a lavish way. The early falling leaves gilded the sidewalks in frail, gold plates that, at the right angle, could be mistaken for yellow bricks in a road that wandered as far as one's imagination wanted to take it. A haze hung low in the streets. The sky was overcast. As afternoon turned to evening, what little light there was vanished completely behind the hills to the north. Quaint store fronts and porticos lit up and, on this particular night, will-o'-the-wisp pumpkin lanterns danced in the streets of the city center.

"Happy birthday, L!"

The decorations in the dining hall served a dual purpose, just like the day. Streamers hung in paper boughs from the ceiling and in thresholds, and pumpkins (carved and transformed into lanterns with well placed tea candles and consideration paid to ventilation) lined the room on tables arranged for the occasion. A couple of the kids had forgotten to vote on their favorite due to the distraction of biscuits and cakes and candies all laid out on festive plates with napkins to match. While it was true the orphans had helped decorate quite a bit the day before, it was the caretakers and matrons and the headmaster's effort going to waste.

The birthday boy spent Halloween camped out in the music room. There, he carefully sorted through the handfuls of candy and goodies offered by his peers as gifts. In all honesty, it was an awful place to undertake the task. By midnight, the grand piano's closed lid served as nothing more than a snack tray, wholly covered by at least twenty types of colorful pastries and treats. In spite of appearances, the expensive instruments in the room survived without even a crumb being spilt upon them.

He moved like a spider, at times even seeming to defy gravity as he bent to retrieve a cookie or gumdrop from any number of sugary towers. This time, a long, slender arm reached out to accept a kebab of chocolate covered fruit from a towheaded boy half his age.

"Thank you," L replied perfunctorily, already taking the kebab's stick between his index finger and thumb. Mindfully, he maneuvered it over his cache of small cakes, and there, impaled it in am appropriate, spongy base that would both support the kebab's weight and collect whatever chocolate dripped down its delectable length.

The little boy had disappeared by the time L looked up again, and in his place was the haunt of all the halls, the old master of the house, Quillish Wammy. If it were any other child perched like a lizard on the piano bench, Quillish would have been horrified. But this was not the case. This one was special. For this one, there were few rules. So, in a voice untarnished by anger or upset, he told his protégé, "the car is ready."

This news seemed to alarm the boy, for his wide, always curious eyes drew a fraction of a hair wider. As he surveyed his sugar fortress, there was a touch of despair in his expression. "Has all of my equipment been loaded yet, sir?"

"Yes, L. We had to put it in another car. The driver has set off already."

"And my wardrobe?"

"Everything is in order. All we are missing now is you."

"I see," L replied, tugging thoughtfully at his lip. "Wammy, sir, I require boxes." Stretching forward over the piano's uncovered keys, L took a miniature chocolate pie from a miniature chocolate pie tower; and he popped the desert in his mouth with a haste unknown to him in regular circumstance. Taking note, Quillish went to fulfill the boy's latest desire.

Thirty minutes later (and thirty minutes late), Quillish finally managed to coax the boy into the car. The case of birthday deserts sat up front, next to Quillish (because he trusted no one else to drive _this_ car with _this _precious cargo), while L rode in back. The dark of the night had taken hold by this time, and mottled shadows swam across the leather upholstery and forced a pale and dingy hue onto the food color rainbow of cakes and cookies spread out in the back seat. Moments unintruded by street lights grew fewer and fewer as the roar of air traffic overhead became louder and louder. If not the noise, then it was the sweets kept him going like the energizer bunny. There was no time to sleep.

As soon as they reached the tarmac, one of Quillish's staff was informing them that the luggage was aboard and their private jet was ready. The pleasant smile the man paid his employee harbored more than just satisfaction with a job well done. He turned his smile on the boy at his side, but L was too busy looking at _everything_ to indulge the old man in his selfish and selfless gratitude. This aircraft was the one L had told Quillish to buy with the money that L had earned for him and his legion of snot nosed, sad faced orphans. In his mind, L overlaid the jet with a wireframe of the blueprints he had studied. When they came to the stepladder, Quillish stood to the side and gestured for L to hold the rails and ascend. Despite the documentation and his spatial expectancies, L was briefly stunned at the sight of the mechanical monstrosity he was being asked to board.

The interior of the craft was luxuriously furnished, but all its delicacies were difficult to distinguish for the massive load of suitcases and chests stacked into the passenger's space. L moved across the fuselage to the window on the other side, and he drew its cover out of the way. As the wide and empty dark of Winchester stared back at him, L heard Wammy move off the steps and into the jet. No, it was more like he felt it happen, like he was compressed within the space as the old man set his hands on the door. The airlock might as well have been a welded rivet.

For all its prelude, this case—this German, serial murder case—L had insisted taking up, on traveling for, was losing its resemblance to the benign puzzles Wammy's House provided him. From where he stood on the crunchy Berber carpet of the jet, the great unknown soared out in all directions. Considering what would one day stem from this moment, maybe he should have been a bit wary of leaping into the dark. He wasn't, though. He was too eager to get lost in it.

It was a good thing L was leaving. He felt this way, at least. The orphanage wasn't a suitable place for him anymore. Even though Quillish had promised most of the children would be moving to other institutes soon, L didn't ever intend to return home. What used to be home, anyway. The old man was making room for something, or someone, and L wasn't entirely sure he wanted to find out what it was.

"Now then," Quillish said. It was such a useless thing to say. He only meant to make a noise that would shake L from his daze. He motioned toward the cockpit.

If any phrase in the world was unfit to hold its meaning, it was this one—this little, soft, unassuming, "I know, sir," that the fifteen year old L spoke before passing by his handler on the way to the pilot's chair.

* * *

Like most of what I've been publishing lately, this fic was started a long time ago and I've only recently gotten back to it. This'll be the first story I post as it is written, piece by piece, which is something I've shied away from in the past because, well, this chapter took me a year to write. I can only imagine what update-nightmates lie ahead! Stay tuned if you dare.


	2. December 25, 1999

**So Long, Pierrot**

Fifteen years, seven goodbyes. They say you can never go home again. Wammy's.

* * *

_There is a story about a little boy._

_He was an orphan,_

_and one day he appeared outside the gates_

_of Heaven._

The building on the old, quiet road on Winchester's east side was no longer a church. It wasn't quite the establishment Quillish Wammy wanted it to be, not yet, but it was getting there. There was scaffolding climbing up the building's face like ivy, and all the platforms were empty. There would be no work on this day. There was snow on the ground but that didn't dissuade people from coming to the grounds. Quillish and his associate Roger had to personally turn away two families who had been standing at the gates when their limousine pulled up to the curb. Evidently, these families mistakenly believed there might be mass held that evening.

"Didn't Mister Wammy say this place hasn't functioned as a church for ages?"

Besides the two Englishmen, there were two children. They trudged obediently behind their elders, exchanging politely hushed whispers between breathing puffs of warmth into their mitten clad hands.

"I guess," the little girl replied to the slightly older boy.

"They're not very smart," he huffed, tossing his chin in the direction of the cars fleeing the curb. "Why would you drag your family out to some church you haven't been to in ages on Christmas? They should have taken an extra second to think on it and saved themselves the trouble."

The girl's shiny Mary Janes stopped flat on the slate walk. She turned to wait and watch the families in their cars rush away to better holidays than she could ever hope to enjoy. With barely a sigh, she repeated, "I guess."

_Saint Peter noticed the little boy in the snow_

_and decided to take him in,_

_to bless him,_

_to save him._

Inside, the building wasn't as drafty as it once was. More repairs were in order, but very soon it would be a suitable place for Wammy's special undertaking. The pews still needed to be removed; and of course there were tarps all over the place to protect the floors and certain stained glass windows from damage during the remodeling frenzy.

The little girl stopped, beholden by the covered crucifix at the back of the altar area. When she crossed herself as per the Catholic ritual, her boy companion snickered. It drew Roger's attention.

"Behave," the man commanded in a quiet voice. "And mind your step." The little boy had already shifted his weight and made allowances in his stride so as to avoid a puddle of wet paint in the path. The four of them walked down the center of the nave, and when they got to the chancel Quillish bade Roger into the vestibule where after they would go to see the vestry turned headmaster's office.

Then, they went to the stairs. Quillish herded the two children up the steps, reassuring them all the while that the addition of the second story had been completed some days ago and it was quite safe. Furnishings and decor were lacking at this stage, but the placement and size of the rooms made it easy to discern this wing as the new dormitory.

"So many rooms," marveled the little girl. Her imagination filled up the empty spaces with people.

"With thanks to L," Quillish commented. The thought distracted him for a moment, and then he refocused on a particular room. "Here, B. This door will be yours. The next will belong to you, A."

_The little boy would live forever in paradise,_

_but with one caveat:_

_being sanctified, he could never again play with mortal children._

_Saint Peter made him promise._

The room smelled of lumber and paint. Splinters threatened her fingers, nonetheless A wasn't afraid to slide her fingers along the window sill. On the other side of the glass was a humble cloister courtyard whose gray stone looked beautiful and dreary at once. She began to think of herself as a pledge, a nun to be, sequestered in a convent. The streets beyond the gardens ran off into the snowy city where once she thought she belonged. A took a step back, took in the room, took a second look at her young life. "Home," she murmured. "Home," she repeated, a tad more firm than the first time. Despite herself, she wasn't convinced.

"You're doing it wrong," B said, peeking in the open doorway. "You have to say, 'There's no place like home.'" Then, with one finger, he pointed down at her feet. "But you're wearing the wrong shoes."

A stared at him with watery eyes and fought the tears she wanted to shed for a family the loss of which was still fresh in her mind. She decided instead to be angry: at B, at her circumstances, at this future she was handed by some power in a faraway penthouse apartment. Her tiny hands curled into fists and she stood up straight and rigid, and she said nothing, and nothing, and more nothing. B seemed keen on winning the staring game for the few seconds he participated, but then he pressed his lips and laughed out loud.

Flustered by the sudden noise of him, the little girl stomped her feet; that provoked B to bolt from the doorway. For some reason, some stupid and childish reason that she didn't care to debate just then, A took off after him. B's winter boots hit the hardwood floor without mercy and the thunder of his scramble soared to the dormitory's high ceilings. The black soles of A's shoes left hideous scuff marks on the floor as she flew in B's wake.

_But he was just a little boy,_

_and all he wanted was to play._

_So he stole away from paradise_

_and played to his heart's content._

A and B were faintly aware of Roger's yelling about horseplay and order, but neither felt any compulsion to abide by the old man's wishes. In fact, they didn't think much of the building just then or the damage they might inflict upon it. It was of no consequence that the celebrated L was footing the bill for the remodling. It didn't matter that, aside from doing their best to be just like him, they should at least feel indebted to this shadowy figure from on high for providing them a real purpose in life—and a new life, and a new identity in place of their old ones. Damn the old and damn the new.

B whizzed around a corner. A was only a few steps behind, but by the time she'd made that same corner her prey had disappeared. The church's front doors were ajar and so, without losing too much momentum, she burst through them and out into the white blanketed gardens. Winter wrapped its arms around her. It dug its finger into her. It extinguished the heat of anger in her skin and left her gasping. Behind her, the church doors banged closed.

A spun, ran, and crashed into the doors. Even as she urged the handles, the doors wouldn't open. "B!" It was hard for her to raise her voice. The volume tore at her long underused vocal cords. On the far side of the dense doors, she could her the boy's muffled laughter. "It's not funny, B!" With curled fingers, she slammed the side of her hand into the door a couple of times, half hoping the lock would let up and the doors would violently hurl the boy away and out of her life. That thought didn't make her happy. Even if he was gone, she would still be right where she was.

_When the little boy returned to the gates of Heaven_

_he found that upon his white clothes_

_there were black spots_

_where the mortal children had touched him._

A exhausted herself, and moments later Quillish opened the doors and wrapped her in his coat. Roger led B by his collar down the walk, saying to Quillish along the way, "no more from the asylums."

B chirruped, "it's too late," as if he knew something no one else did. Being an heir of L, one would hope the boy was privy to certain things, but in this case Roger looked upon the young ward with scorn. B surrendered his stance with a soft simper and let the issue fall by the wayside. Roger and Quillish would find out later, but by the look in A's eyes, B deduced she already knew.

The drive back to the hotel was very quiet. They did not all share rooms, so Quillish invited the children into his suite to give them one gift each. A stood motionless while B meticulously took apart the colorful wrappings without causing a single tear or unnecessary wrinkle in the paper. In his hands, B held a book. A textbook. It caused him to chuckle. In the meantime, A decided what she held was likely similar if not exactly the same and therefore made no effort to unwrap her gift.

"Knowledge is the greatest gift," Quillish told them. "Knowledge is power, and you must be as powerful as you can be. You must learn all you can learn if you hope one day to surpass L."

B was still chuckling to himself. "Good night, Wammy, sir."

"Good night."

The children left the room and moved toward the one they shared. When A stopped at the door, B didn't question her. Instead, he said, simply, "merry Christmas, Adrienne."

For an instant, just an instant, there was light behind A's eyes. She wondered, desperately—and not out of fear—how this boy she barely knew could know a name she'd never spoken to him. Inside that same heartbeat, though, she determined it didn't matter. That name really didn't belong to her anymore.

When B left her at the door, the numbers above A's head read two hours remaining. He went into the darkness of their room to tuck the terrible gift under his pillow—might he attain Edgar Casey's supernatural talent for picking up lessons in his sleep—and returned to the threshold two minutes later to shut the door. Because the hall was empty. A was gone.

A was going home.

_Pierrot broke his promise_

_and Saint Peter proclaimed the little boy's guilt_

_and banished him from Heaven_

_forever._

_

* * *

_Author's Notes: This came out kind of blah. It doesn't feel like it seamlessly leads up to A's suicide, but it's the best I could do. A kind of turned into _The Little Princess_ because I wasn't sure what else to do with him/her. At any rate, the title's explained now.

Disclaimer: Death Note isn't mine.  
Edit: Oh! And the original tale behind the guilty boy Pierrot isn't mine, either. It's floating around on the interwebs. The poetry-esque delivery here is my own rendition.


	3. May 26, 2002

**So Long, Pierrot**

Fifteen years, seven goodbyes. They say you can never go home again. Wammy's.

* * *

A distant rumble of thunder came from somewhere, out there, in the endless dark pressing into the unshuttered windows of the Wammy House's East Hall. Mother Nature seemed upset, but her muttering was hardly audible to B, who sat bathed in the neon blue glow of a television set, listening to the BBC news. The House had been in an uproar when it was fresh, but now, as the information was several hours old, it bored B terribly. That was the idea.

Restlessness kept him awake. Tonight he wanted to sleep, but every effort he put forth was in vain. Ever since Wammy had begun importing his little rugrats into the House, it was nigh on impossible to keep the kitchen stocked with comfort foods and midnight snacks. Even the doors had been nibbled on. And who was he but a second class citizen now that Wammy had his glittering third generation? The ceiling in his first floor room (a demotion from the ranked rooms upstairs) leaked from the above bath. Maybe it was moral decay burning away the old church behind the drywall. Whatever the case, his bed had become a waterboarding station and he could no longer sleep there.

He camped out in the East Hall, hoping the drivel over the airwaves would put him to sleep. Just as the soft static noise of rain began to lull him into a state of relative peace, a shuffling sound from the corridor behind him drove an ample dose of wakefulness straight into his bones. With a long hand brushing his messy hair out of his eyes, B stared passed the open doors and into the pool of light crawling across the corridor floor. Two shadows moved into the threshold, drawn by the television, and stopped.

"They found ice on Mars," B said. Generally, it would be a very odd thing for someone to say in such a situation, but B did not need to inquire as to who these two strangers were. In his mind, he saw their names float above their heads. The only mystery was what purpose they, who were not students, had for being in the House, but B—who smiled a smile so wide it nearly split his face in two—was not too worried.

L spoke with gentle, practiced surprise. "Oh, yes." He wanted to put on an ordinary air, but B wasn't fooled. "May I trouble you?" The pair had been stationary for some time, and a puddle of dripping rainwater had formed at their feet. Nate, at L's side, contemplatively turned a folded umbrella in his hands.

"No trouble, gents. It is a wonder, though, what sort of business brings guests at this hour." B obliged them by getting to his feet and showing them down the corridor.

L humored B's curiosity. "My apologies. I lost track of the time. We were prepared to let ourselves in, you see. It's just been a while since I've been here. Tell me, is mister Ruvie well?"

"You're joking? That man's half mad by now." B barged into the washroom in the dark and pulled two towels from the shelves in the corner. L's flashlight chased the young man in and back, and then the light cautiously dipped as he took the offered towel. Nate, who remained silent, took a towel too, but he was less interested in drying off what with B staring at him so.

L, who tentatively dabbed at his own sopping hair, replied quietly. "Par for the course."

Forsaking any further small talk, B sighed and made the rude remark, "so, is this the latest one—another rat for Wammy's wheel?"

"Oh, my. I hope not. That sounds dreadful." L succeeded in confusing B for two point five seconds. "Near is a good friend of mine, as is mister Ruvie; and I thought, why not introduce friends to friends?"

B winced. "Are you not staying with us, Near?"

Again, Nate didn't say a thing. L did. "Oh, we're staying. As long as it's no trouble."

"No trouble . . . " B repeated, mumbling and barely managing to avoid biting his own tongue.

L gave him a polite grin. "Of course. I would like to confer with the headmaster, but that should wait until the morning, I think. By the way, my name is J." Or maybe it was supposed to be _Jay_, as he had said it has been a while since he'd been to the House. J was supposed to be an orphan from before Wammy's House, raised in the church under the old orphanage's banner, before Wammy began his experiment and started giving children letters for names. B kept up with the reality and the ruse, and he nodded his head to the codename charade; all while trying to grasp why, oh why, would L want to stay at Wammy's House.

After reciprocating his name (or letter, really), B fetched for them clothes to wear after they had shed their wet ones. Nate was a good sport, but L refused to wear anything other than his own clothes. He dripped dry while B set out a spare set of blankets so that the guests could share the East Hall.

B went back to his room. It was damp, and dark, and smelled funny, but with the door closed he felt secure against the weirdness going on in the House. He still didn't get any sleep, but that was fine. Meeting his opponent face to face had invigorated him. He felt ready for the coming day.

Besides, B was sure he could catch some sleep during the flight across the pond.

* * *

Author's Notes: So, I guess the Wammy's House is like Mars.


	4. November 16, 2003

**So Long, Pierrot**

Fifteen years, seven goodbyes. They say you can never go home again. Wammy's.

* * *

"Matt, it smells in here," Mello said as he let himself into the dorm room the third and fourth ranked students shared. He went immediately to the little window on the far side of the room and began tugging at the brass crank.

The high tempo music from the laptop on the bed died down momentarily. A snarky little grin crossed and left Matt's face in time with the changing of light from the LCD screen. The game he was playing transitioned from one level to the next with a poorly animated cinematic scene. The cheesy voice acting was of little interest to him, and so he was willing to talk over it. "It's stuck," he told Mello, speaking from the corner of his mouth that wasn't occupied by a cigarette. His fingers wouldn't leave the keyboard—they were busy instructing the computer to bring a separate process to the foreground. A grainy camera feed popped up and occupied a space off to the right of the screen.

With one foot propped up against the window sill, Mello put all of his weight onto the crank. His effort was obvious by the strain of his voice. "Don't you have a screwdriver or something?"

"You think Roger wouldn't be miffed if I started taking apart his hardware? Let him smell the smoke. He has his pipe, I have this."

Matt stopped tap-tap-tapping on his keyboard when the window crank gave a grating shriek. Mello did quite a bit of stumbling but managed to find his balance before landing on his backside. The dorm was instantly chilled with the cold air of autumn.

Mello dallied a moment to flex his sore fingers, then he marched over to his friend's bed and snatched the lit stick of tobacco right out of Matt's mouth. "You know what'll happen, don't you? You'll be thrown out."

"And then who will you nag?" Matt muttered, turning his attention to the new level of his game. He wasn't planning to get too far into it. He pressed intently at the keys until Mello decided he was fed up and left, and then Matt called up the camera feed again. In black and white, the video displayed a Constable's patrol car pulling into the street and was leaving the area. Seeing this, Matt shuffled off the bed, dug his shoes out from under the mess of laundry by the door, grabbed a book bag and snuck out of the dorms.

...

"Hey, kid. What's your name?"

This is how it starts. There couldn't be a more offensive question, not for someone like Matt.

"None of your business." _You can't have my name. You can't even have my alias. Yeah, it's confidential. I'm important shit. Go on, lay a hand on me. I dare you._

The walls of the convenience store seemed to lean in, making the space feel more cramped than it already was. "It is my business," the man behind the counter grumbled, "you've been pinching cigarettes. I see them there." He curled his fist, but one pointing finger, against the counter. "In your jacket. I got you on the cameras, so be a smart boy and hand them back, and maybe we don't need to involve your parents."

Matt turned his wrists in his pockets to cup and cover the box that might've been showing. It was an amateur's mistake and he knew it as soon as he made it. He'd been stealing for a long time, longer than the clerk suspected, but Matt had never refined the art.

The shopkeeper was bluffing, but he didn't know it. Matt had tinkered with the shop's surveillance and set up a system months ago whereby he could set the feeds to loop whenever he liked. It was the only way to sustain his _really cool_ addiction that none of the other kids back home at the orphanage understood. The police didn't really get it, either, because they kept trying to arrest him for it. This time, if he let the man behind the counter come out and rough him up, Matt was pretty sure the Constable would take the side of the battered child who, according to the cameras, did not steal anything. As pleased as he would be to saddle the _know-nothing, nobody_ clerk with assault charges, Matt really couldn't afford the bruises.

So, he bolted.

...

"Tell me your name."

It kept on going like this.

Matt winced. The brick façade of the building his face was slammed against and the pain of his arm being bent backwards against his spine was all he could think about in that moment. That, and he was completely out of breath from running. There was really no way he could answer the Constable.

And then his arm was rotated a few more degrees the wrong way, and he found the strength to rasp, "Matt! Wammy!" There was a pause wherein Matt, given the time, would have thought, _yeah, that Wammy's. Sod off._ Really, the Constable was just shifting his weight to put a knee in Matt's back so that he could get his handcuffs.

...

Roger, with a heavy hand set on Matt's shoulder, had words with the Custody Sergeant. Old words. Rehashed points. The two men might've become good acquaintances in between their conversations about Mister Ruvie's troublesome young ward. Matt spent the entire hour staring at his muddy shoelaces, lying as the did on the floor. If they'd have stayed tied, he never would have been caught.

The ride back to Wammy's House was silent. It wasn't the sort of _I'm-disappointed-in-you_ silence that filled the empty spaces in the orphanage. It wasn't a faltering _I'll-figure-out-how-to-get-this-through-your-head-in-a-minute_ silence, either. This silence gaped open wide.

Matt leaned his head into the window and its chill crept across his face, his whole body. The warmth of his breath fogged the glass. "It's weird how fast everything changes."

"You do well with your German, don't you?" Roger asked, and sighed, because he knew the answer and Matt seemed too despondent to properly reply. "Quillish has arranged a transfer for you, to an institute in Hanover."

Matt was pretty sure it was just a bump in the road that shook him.

There was nothing else said, and sooner rather than later the limousine was pulling into the Wammy's House driveway. The building looked _exactly _the same, and yet . . . Matt didn't feel like he was coming home.

...

"Hey," Matt said, hanging off the doorjamb of the room Mello and Near shared. "I came to say buh-bye." He spoke with a stupid little smirk that didn't make sense. When Mello pulled his nose out of his textbook just to roll his eyes. Matt smiled wider, because it was funny that Mello thought he was teasing, and flashed his plane ticket.

The snapping sound of Mello's textbook being shut drew Near's attention. The epic robot war unfolding on the carpet froze up mid-explosion, and then Mello happened to kick the robot hero across the room on his way to the door.

Mello spent a while in the vestry, yelling at Roger. That was after he was done yelling at Matt, of course. Anyway, Matt kind of half-hoped that the old man would be intimidated by his friend's ire and rescind the transfer, but that was unrealistic. This thing was happening, and like so many times in his young life, he was just a butterfly in the changing breeze.

...

It wasn't until much later that Matt learned the institute in Hanover housed delinquents, not geniuses.

"And your name?" The stout woman who worked for the facility asked. She was an impatient woman, he could tell—probably worn wary by all the smart-alecky punks she had to deal with on a daily basis.

He had a little trouble with his fluency, and it took him a minute to dissect the slush of German into individual words.

This again. It never ends.

"Matt."

The woman's fingers roved the keyboard of her outdated desktop computer, then paused. "Matt what?"

He grinned, impishly, because he was far too smart to be caged up by a place like this for long, because he knew exactly what he was doing, because he was a smart-alecky little punk; and he told her, "just Matt."

* * *

Author's Notes: Yeah, you can totally tell where I stopped writing for a while and then started again. It doesn't really follow, but it is what it is.


	5. December 5, 2004

**So Long, Pierrot  
**Fifteen years, seven goodbyes. They say you can never go home again. Wammy's.

* * *

To say Near had tidied the room was an understatement. In general, if their room was clean, it simply meant the beds were made. At the same time, it meant the carpet was covered in stray jigsaw puzzle pieces and the miscellaneous, detachable parts of toys; and the first meter of the wall was usually obscured behind towers of stacked dice and toothpicks. Unfailingly, there was at least one robot, in some mysterious corner of the room, making some kind of annoying noise. Today was different. All the playthings had been picked up and put upon the shelves on Near's side of the room (the shelves meant for study books and files—things Near never seemed to need). The floor was completely clear.

Mello's steady gait hitched in the doorway. His thumbs wrapped around the door frame and kept him, for just a moment, from puncturing the abstract skin of the room's eerie interior perfection.

Then, he took a deep breath, went to his dresser, and started to pack.

Over the hour and half it took him to collect his life into the space of a suitcase, a few of his peers paused by the room and said their bit. Everyone seemed to be a little heartsick, but no one was really too sore over what had happened, what was happening. For many of them, it was just another day. Ranks were going to change and lessons were going to get harder—this the children knew; and they were vaguely aware that sometime soon there would be a funeral held for someone they'd heard of but never really known. The words the orphans spoke to Mello were of the same sort found in greeting cards, full of borrowed sentiment and insincere well-wishes. He didn't pretend to listen.

He left.

He left, and it wasn't until he set foot on the steps to the underground train that he really realized his time at Wammy's was over. It wasn't as if he was surprised to find himself here. He had a plan. He'd finally gotten to writing it all out a week after his fourteenth birthday. He'd always known he'd be out of that stuffy church and on his own by fifteen. L had. Mello had gotten an eight day head-start.

He wouldn't have let the year end without leaving, regardless of recent events. If things had been different, Mello would have probably packed and left today, anyway. Today just felt like the kind of day to take a big step. Now, he didn't have to consider running into L. It'd be weird if he got in the way of one of L's investigation. Actually, it might be kind of funny. Maybe Mello would be able to beat him to the solution of the case.

Heh.

. . .

L was dead.

He really died.

How was it even possible?

He could still hear his voice, thoughtful and a tad disappointed. For just the span of a heartbeat, Mello forgot the noise of the city, and he was sitting in the church garden listening to the man who called himself J talk about the Los Angeles BB murder cases. The corners of Mello's mouth twitched to smile at the memory, and in the next instant it was all he could do to keep himself from sobbing in the street like a lost child. He'd felt _bitter_ toward J, toward L, for bringing Near to Wammy's, as if L was somehow (in some stupid, irrational, emotion way) responsible for Mello's inability to surpass Near. And, in the end, Mello had conceded.

L was dead. Quillish too. And B.

He didn't follow the steps down to the tube. He turned instead and meandered up the street. There was a gift shop at the end of the block that he needed to visit. Over the last three years, Mello had probably been in and out of it about a dozen times. The first time, Matt had dragged him in the door, promising him there'd be an interesting knickknack worth his time. Matt had been completely wrong, of course, and Mello spent the rest of the trip complaining and making sure Matt understood how stupid the place was. This time—this one last time—he dragged his feet over the threshold and went to a display case he'd only ever seen in his periphery.

The people may be gone now, but what they stood for still remained.

_'Near should be the one to succeed L.'_

Mello would no longer devote his life to becoming the greatest detective the world had ever known. He was going to avenge that man. That man, who was a little bit of L, a little bit of who Mello might have been, and a little bit of that repurposed church at the end of the lane in Winchester.

Mello bought a rosary bead necklace and set off to usurp the mafia, so that he could destroy a god.


End file.
